“With fire or boiling water.”
“You always know how to defend yourself,” she said, thoroughly convinced.
Stasch felt very much flattered at these words, and so answered in a cheerful voice:
“If you only keep well you can rely on me for the rest.”
“I have not even a headache now.”
“Thank heaven! Thank heaven!”
During this conversation they were riding on the border of the forest, which was only divided from the narrow pass by a hedge. The sun was still high in the heavens, and its scorching rays beat down on them, for the weather was fine, and there was not a cloud above the horizon. The horses were sweating profusely, and Nell began to complain of the heat. And so Stasch, seeing a suitable place, turned into the gorge, the west side of which was now completely shady. The water still left in the hollows after the storm of the previous day was now fairly cold. Over the heads of the little wanderers there continually flew—from one side of the gorge to the other—pepper-eaters with purple heads, blue breasts, and yellow wings, and the boy began to tell Nell what he had read in books about their habits.
“You know,” he said, “there are pepper-eaters which, in the brooding season, find a cavity in a tree, and the female then carries the eggs there and sets on them, and the male closes the opening with clay so that only the head of the female is visible, and not until the young ones are hatched does he break the wall of clay with his large beak and give the female her liberty again.”
“And what does she have to eat all this time?”
“The male feeds her. He flies about constantly and brings her various kinds of berries.”